The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT I have invested a lot of time in the last six or seven years trying to educate myself on LED display technology and terminology, but sometimes it feels like I have mountain to climb and I am still at base camp looking for my oxygen bottle stash. Manufacturers and their marketers keep coming up with new terms and acronyms, and they often play pretty fast and loose with their descriptions and assertions. Exhibit A are all the companies who are marketing microLED products that aren't microLED, and Exhibit B is the crowd of Chinese manufacturers saying they have Naked Eye 3D LED displays, when all of those visual illusions seen on displays lately are the result of clever creative and have nothing to do with the display technology. So I have a lot of time for a UK company called LED Studio, which has made the conscious decision to educate its customers and broader market, instead of blinding that market with piles of specs and marketing terms that few people understand. The company has resources on its website that explain the technology and clear some of the technical fog, and people who know their stuff, speak openly, and aren't in perpetual Always be Closing sales mode. I had a great chat about LED technology terms, what's going on in the industry, and what really matters. My guests are Larry Zoll, who runs US operations, and Ross Noonan, the UK-based Technical Sales & Marketing Manager and the guy leading the education effort. The accents will give away who is who. Subscribe from wherever you pick up new podcasts. TRANSCRIPT Larry and Ross, thank you for joining me. Can you give me a quick introduction of who you are and what LED Studio does? Larry Zoll: I'm Larry Zoll, the president of the LED Studio's operations. Ross Noonan: I'm Ross Noonan, the technical sales and marketing manager for the LED Studio. Larry Zoll: We are a UK-based LED display manufacturer with a growing presence worldwide. So just for clarity, Ross is over in the UK, and Larry is in the United States right now, so they can't look at each other and go, now you talk or whatever. So, I've known you guys for a while. I've been to your little demo center in London, and I know LED Studio is based in the West of London. I had a good chat with Ross at ISE, and one of the things that really struck home for me was that there was a company that was actually trying to educate the market on more than just their product. You know, Ross, in particular, was trying to clear the fog through blogging and videos and everything else, explaining to people what this is all about because it's a very confusing little space, is it not? Larry Zoll: It's a very confusing space. I mean, Dave, you and I have known each other for a long time. I've always been very focused on technology and the education of technology and making sure that people understand what's really out there because it's so confusing. You know, a big part of our initiatives is making sure that we're able to educate the market and simplify what's out there because for a long time, this has been an alphabet soup of different options and different availability, and really more often than not tends to be more confusing than it needs to be. One of our goals specifically is to help demystify that and help people understand what they need and, almost more importantly, what they don't need to implement successfully an exciting project. Is it confusing because I'm stupid or… Well, don't answer that! Or is it just that marketers are trying to outdo each other, so they come up with acronyms and push aspects of their products that maybe don't matter all that much but make them sound special? Larry Zoll: I'll let the marketer answer that question. Then, I'll give you my perspective. Ross Noonan: I think you’re definitely not stupid. I think we've got people who have been in LED for a long time, and they even have to get into the nitty-gritty as to why they're offering a product for a particular application. You know, it is not like any other kind of technology. It doesn't just come out of a box. I know that some brands are going down the all-in-one route, and that's fantastic. It opens up big screens to off-the-shelf items. Still, it's a very small part of the market, and as soon as you move away from that, there are so many different ways to do something with an LED display. There are so many different applications that basically mean that the specs are ripped up and started again. I think I mentioned this on a blog previously. You know, a consultant came to me and said, why can't you just give me a data sheet? And the reason sometimes is that, well, because you've asked for a particular thing, we've got to go away and kind of rip that data sheet up and start from scratch. Does it need different receiver cards? Does it need to have a different pixel technology? What is the function that you need? Where do ...
